Family Style Dining

Meal times were such a struggle in my house, especially dinner before we discovered family style dining. By the time dinner came around, my kids complained that they weren’t hungry or that they didn’t like what was made. Then dinner became a much less enjoyable time than if was prior to kids. Instead, we tried to encourage them to eat in any way that came to mind in the moment. We spent so much time focusing on getting our kids to eat, that it was often difficult to eat ourselves.

So, what do you do when your kids won’t eat dinner? What about when your toddler refuses to eat? How about your picky eater that limits what you can serve at meals? Our solution is family style dining.

What is Family Style Dining?

Then, we discovered family style dining. This completely changed our dinner experience. It also provided us the time to talk as a family while we ate our still warm meal. It’s a little change that made all the difference. After preparing the meal, we would put the meal onto platters and into bowls placed on the table (kind of like a buffet). Each bowl or platter would have a serving spoon or fork that the children could use. Then, our children were given empty plates. They were tasked with filling their own plate with their dinner from the options served on the table.

This simple act of asking each child to fill their own plate completely transformed our meal times. Our kids happily filled their plates choosing how much of eat to put on their plate. And better yet, they started eating dinner while sitting at the table.

Set Expectations during Family Style Dining

Setting expectations during family style dining is encouraged. Our children needed to learn to serve themselves some and not all. Our first meal ended with a trip to the grocery store to buy more tomatoes when one child served themselves the entire bowl. They also needed to figure out passing dishes and plates, which had a learning curve. Do expect to teach this skill of using both hands to pick up and pass the bowl to the next person. Or if the dishes are hot, a plate can be passed using two hands. Finally, we did set an expectation that they try everything on the table even if it’s just a little.

These little hiccups lasted only a short time. Now our children eat meals with us, for the most part. They enjoy making their own plates and are much better at taking a reasonable amount of food. Plus, on the nights we need to hurry, they are even good about letting us make their plate so eating can occur more quickly.

Our Meal Transformation

It was amazing how much they ate that first time we tried it. They all went back for seconds and one even had thirds. At no time did we need to encourage them to eat. Instead we were able to eat our meal and talk with our children. Now, we did have a few expectations. They needed to put a little of everything on their plate and try it. As they serve themselves, we discussed how much of each item served that they should eat. It might be that they need to take two big scoops, 7 pieces of meat, or even no more than one scoop.

Personalize these discussions to each child. This is a great time to talk about serving sizes and servings needed. It’s a great time to discuss healthy eating. It’s also a good time to show them that you care (one who likes tomatoes but not potatoes must take more tomatoes but still some potatoes, while the one who likes potatoes but not tomatoes may take more potatoes but at least 1 tomato). This helps to teach them to eat things in moderation and use serving sizes appropriate for each child.

We also could spend some time talking with our children. We love to ask about their day, including favorite moment, something they would change, and something that made them excited. If you happen to have dual language learners, this is perfect for practicing their second language as well. For children who are ready for conversations with parents who speak the language, great! If not, check out my post on Grouping Vocabulary for Language Learning for items on brainstorming categories to grow your children’s vocabulary.

What You Need for Family Style Dining

Getting ready for family style dining took a little work on our part. We needed to make sure that we had enough dishes to serve our food in on the tables. We prefer to move the meal to new bowls and dishes so that they are not hot when the children serve from them. So we needed to have enough large bowls and serving spoons, tongs, and forks for our children to use.

We prefer bowls like these Pyrex mixing bowls as they allow for easy storage of leftovers after the meal because they have lids available. Who doesn’t love easy clean up after a meal?

We prefer to use our own large serving spoons that came with our eating utensil set, but these child size serving spoons from constructive playthings are great as well. Plus these come with a variety of serving utensils for all the different foods your might serve your little ones.

Allowing your children the opportunity to serve themselves their own food empowers them to make healthy choices, teaches self-control, and motivates them to eat their food. It seems like such a simple change, but sometimes the simplest changes help our little butterflies to take flight.

Common Problems with Family Style Dining

Small Table

Many families have a small table for eating. This leaves little room at the table for all the food to be set out. If this is your situation, place the food on a counter or island in your kitchen. Work with your children to teach them how to add food to their plate while also bringing their plate from dish to dish. Then support them as they move to the table with their plate.

You may even need to carry the plate for your children and allow them to scoop the food on their plate. Or if they aren’t quite ready for scooping, at least tell you which foods they want to try and how much of each food they’d like. Give them as much ownership as you can.

Hot Dishes

Teach children to pass their plates to the person closest to the hot dish. This allows a parent or adult to serve the food onto the plate and keep the children safe from the heat. If you are really worried about the heat, transfer the hot food from the pan or pot used for cooking. Put the food into a different bowl, like the Pyrex mixing bowls above. You can also place a smaller serving of food into the fridge or freezer to cool down your child’s portion of food for serving him/herself.

Your Child Serves Too Much Food

Talk with your child about how much they need before they serve the food. Speak in terms of child sized quantities that they will understand. You need to take 5 pieces or one big scoop. Then monitor as they make their plate. Once they become more proficient at serving themselves, they will do this without much support from parents. And it truly is incredible when you can sit down for a meal together with little interrupts.

Getting Started with Family Style Dining

The best part here is that you don’t have to change every meal right away. Pick one meal this week to try out family style dining with your children. This isn’t a rush and you can slowly build up to more family style dining meals in a week. Plus, you never have to make every meal in this type. Even after we switched to family style dining, we still have some nights where parents serve the meal onto plates for the kids. And that is perfectly okay.

First Meal

For the first meal, pick something easy for your children to serve themselves. We find that burgers or sausages are pretty easy for the kids to serve. If you are worried about ketchup and mustard, grab a few packets of them from your local restaurants or stores. Pasta also tends to be easy to scoop for kids and is pretty easy to talk about how much to scoop on their plate. You can add garlic bread to give them two different food items to put on their plate.

For a side try something easy for the kids to scoop onto their plates. We love broccoli or carrots as these are big enough to count how much they take yet small enough to be scooped onto a plate by little kids. Don’t sweat the small stuff here. If they try to pick out 5 of the smallest carrots, that’s okay today. The goal was to get them to eat some carrots, and they are! Next time, talk about how if they like the small carrots, they will need to take 10 carrots. You may even need to define a small carrot for your kids.

Add More Choices

In the beginning, keep the choices small. This limits the need to pass dishes and keeps the spills a little less as you all learn together. It also keeps the extra dishes to a minimum and means you won’t need to buy as much as quickly. You’ll have time to gather or find what you need. As they get more efficient with passing their dishes, you can try out more complex meals like tacos or veggie pizza where there are multiple bowls of vegetables to add to their plates.

We started with dinner because this was our most difficult meal, but you could easily expand family style dining to breakfast, lunch and snacks too. How great would it be if you could set out the breakfast food on the table and your children served themselves, making breakfast a much less time consuming affair for the parents? Maybe you’ll even get a hot breakfast too!

Some Recommendations for Family Style Dining

You never have to completely switch every meal for this to work. Change the ones that work for your family, when it works for your family. Some nights we just don’t have the time or the patience and that’s just fine. Even a little change helps a lot.

Get the kids cooking with you when you can. The more the kids help to make the meal, even if it’s just putting food into bowls or carrying the bowls to the table, it goes a long way. Our kids love seeing all the foods as we make them and tasting the meal as it is created.

Don’t spend a fortune to get started. Often times you can use bowls and spoons that you already own and they can be repurposed as serving utensils. But do make sure that they are small enough for your child’s hands.

Incorporate the kids in the clean up. If your bowls all come with lids, children can help put the lid on the dishes. They can even bring the dishes to the refrigerator to help put them away for leftover night or lunch. If dishes are empty, they can carry dishes to the sink and if they are tall enough, they can even help rinse them out.

If things aren’t working, pause. Think about what little changes you might need to make or expectations you might need to set. Then try again when you are ready. This isn’t a rush.

Let us know if you’ve ever tried family style dining and what you think below in the comments. Excited to hear what you think.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.